Western Governors University

Western Governors University (WGU) is a competency-based, nonprofit university that allows the working, adult student for whom a traditional university education simply won’t work to earn their bachelor’s or master’s degree. Serving over 50,000 students in all fifty states, WGU made Fast Company’s list of the world’s 50 most innovative companies. In 2014 WGU approached the Brick Factory to rebuild its flagship marketing website, www.wgu.edu.

Program Strategy & Planning

Drupal Development

Responsive Website Development

Front End Development

DRUPAL DEVELOPMENT

Prior to contracting with the Brick Factory, WGU’s internal design team and an outside design firm created the design for the new website. The previous version of the WGU website was in Drupal 6, so the Brick Factory’s role was to work with WGU’s internal development team to implement the new designs in Drupal 7. This involved creating a new custom Drupal theme, importing legacy content and upgrading a series of custom modules from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7.

RESPONSIVE DESIGN

WGU’s previous website was designed strictly for desktop computers, so one of the primary objectives of the project was to make the website mobile and tablet friendly. As part of the project the Brick Factory implemented a responsive theme and created a custom, mobile and-tablet friendly menu system that works well on all devices.

DEGREE PAGES

WGU’s four colleges (Business, Health Professions, Information Technology and Teachers) offer students a variety of bachelors and masters degree options to choose from. On www.wgu.edu each degree, such as Master of Business Administration, has a micro-website that explains what the degree is about and encourages students to apply or request more information. The Brick Factory built a degree management system in Drupal in a way that keeps a common look and feel but allows each degree page to be customized based on the content.